Category Archives: Uncategorized
When a Bentley WAS a Bentley
Filed under Cameras, Photography, Technology, Uncategorized
From Russia, With Luck
No kidding, this is a mint condition Olympia Progress, Russian. Unfortunately I don’t type Russian, nor do I speak it, or understand it. But I will sell it to the Russians for a tidy sum, since they are now wisely going back to typing classified documents. That is about the only good thing that can be said about Russia these days. Who would have thought that Russia is part of the typewriter insurgency!
Photograph of Chief Russian Insurgent, purportedly typing a secret report. Picture taken with one of those “film” cameras and developed in coffee….
Hey Vlad, want to buy my typewriter? For you, hmmm, $1000, cash only please.
What can this mean? A secret message? Cryptic!
Heavily redacted secret message, obviously in code as well. Proof positive that they are using typewriters for their secret business!
Filed under Photography, Poetry, Technology, Thrift shop finds, Typewriters, Uncategorized
Two Views
VIEWED FROM THE EAST IN SWANS PUB
VIEWED FROM THE WEST ON A FIRE ESCAPE
The Bridge rises
Literally
The huge counterweight
Hangs overhead
But not for long
This bridge is doomed
Little brother to the Golden Gate
Writ by the same engineers
Written off now
Other engineers think
Too expensive to fix
The mighty drill rig
Penetrates the bedrock
Laying the footings
A new bridge will stand on
Filed under Painting, Poetry, Uncategorized
From the 25 cent Pile

When the price of LP’s hits 25 cents I don’t mind wasting a quarter on a wild purchase. Thus I acquired an LP by Axel Stordahl, The Lure of the Blue Mediterranean, dating from 1959. Available on itunes now:
I really did get it for the jacket/sleeve/cover/inside pages. It’s one of those LP’s that was sold as a concept, complete with a rather long essay, and a photo spread across a substantial number of pages. It sort of reminded me of Magical Mystery Tour, but for my parents generation. Is it possible the Beatles saw this album and copied the idea?
Stordahl was Sinatra’s band leader in the late forties. To my pleasant surprise, the album is good. The orchestra is excellent, and the sings are interesting and varied. Much better than “elevator” music for sure. And, to top it all off, I discovered a reference to a typewriter inside. The author of the essay was a writer named Horace Sutton. It seem he traveled a lot, and carried with him a Hermes portable. That made it worth 25 cents, for sure.
As for the songs, well, they include Night in Tunisia. Dizzy Gillespie, what could be cooler?
Track list:
1. Majorca. Isle Of Love
2. Isle Of Capri (much better than Sinatra)
3. Tunis, Ports Of Call: Escales
4. Cyprus
5. Red Sails In The Sunset
6. Haifa
7. Autumn In Rome: From Ost By Alessandro Cicognini
8. Miserlou
9. Palermo, Ports Of Call: Escales
10. Off Shore
11. Riviera Pavanne
12. A Night In Tunisia
Filed under LP's, Thrift shop finds, Typewriters, Uncategorized
The Lake in Winter
The Lake in Winter
winter weather is here
the lake has a frozen crust
ducks stand around perplexed by solid water
they peck at the ice as if expecting food
they shuffle about like old people
wearing slipper socks on a slippery floor
but they don’t fall, and if they do
they have not far to go
we stood and watched them,
glowing in the brilliant sunlight
then started to walk away and they scattered suddenly
for no apparent reason but then two eagles cruised by
looking for ducks perhaps, or maybe not
surely it would have been so easy to swoop down and grab one
next a river otter hiding beneath the dock
where there was no ice
came out briefly chewing on something we couldn’t see
before it went back into hiding
now a hawk, a large red tail
harassed by crows it leaves its high perch
leisurely sails away, regal, nonplussed by its pursuers
it soon disappears like the otter, but into the sky
quite frozen we turn towards home now
when we find a skull hung from a branch by the path
a cow we assume, whence it came a mystery
no cows here for decades yet there it hangs
like a relic from the desert
we examine and leave it there
looking up we see the eagle swirling about
riding the updraft or merely the wind
it circles several times then heads away
towards a perch atop a tall tree,
coming to rest seemingly implacable
the master of all beneath its imperious gaze
it hardly bothers to see us as we walk by
no doubt it paid us no heed
though we looked up and admired it with looks that said
we hold you in awe and though we do not scatter when you come
we are grateful you deign not attack us
a natural fact of which we are secretly worried
lest it not be an infallible truth
Filed under Photography, Poetry, Uncategorized
























